And Sarah said, God has made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me.
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Ambrose of Milan
AD 397
I have described sufficiently the origin of holy Isaac and the grace he received in my discussion of his father. He abounds in glory, in that he was born as a reward to Abraham, his incomparably great father. And no wonder, since there were prefigured in him the birth and the passion of the Lord. An aged woman who was sterile brought him to birth according to God’s promise, so that we might believe that God has power to bring it about that even a virgin may give birth. He was offered for sacrifice in a singular fashion, that he might not be lost to his father and yet might fulfill the sacrifice. Likewise by his very name he prefigures grace. For Isaac means “laughter,” and laughter is the sign of joy. Now everybody knows that he is the joy of all who checked the dread of fearsome death, took away its terror and became for all people the forgiveness of their sins. The one is named and the other demoted; the one portrayed and the other foretold. Isaac, or the Soul
Come now, today too, dearly beloved, let us take up the thread of yesterday’s remarks and thus set before you this spiritual meal so that we may once more come to learn, as you heard yesterday, the good God’s ineffable care and considerateness and the patriarch’s remarkable obedience and gratitude. Do you see how the birth of Isaac made Sarah joyful? “She said, ‘The Lord brought laughter to me: whoever hears of it will rejoice with me.’ ” Everyone who hears of it, she is saying, I will convince to be a sharer of my joy. After all, the gift given me by God is wonderful, surpassing human limitations. I mean, who would not be struck, she is saying, to see me feeding and nursing a child in old age after being childless up to this stage of my life? As though surprised and amazed at the event, she added, “Who will let Abraham know that Sarah is nursing a child, that I have borne a son in my old age?” Since what happened was beyond the bounds of nature, she naturally demands, “Who will let hi...
